Energy Probe
Ottawa Citizen
July 12, 2009

Energy Probe’s own Norman Rubin was recently quoted in an article in the Ottawa Citizen examining the approval of subsidies for a 200-acre farm in West Carleton, just west of Ottawa. As part of the program, the government will pump at least $100-million for the construction of 300,000 solar panels.

Once the project is operational, the government expects it to produce around 20 megawatts of electricity—or enough energy to power 7,000 homes. The project will create the largest photovoltaic plant in Canada.

Yet Rubin is concerned with how much the project will cost taxpayers.

Norman Rubin, a senior policy analyst at Energy Probe, says while solar energy will, in time, “revolutionize electricity as we know it,” the government’s current approach amounts to throwing good money after bad.

Rubin says consumers now pay five to six cents a kilowatt hour for conventional electricity, but the government is paying solar companies 42 cents a kilowatt hour for their power. He says what the solar companies are contributing to the electricity grid is so small, it boggles the mind why so much money is being wasted on them.

“The policy is crazy,”Rubin said. “We can’t afford it. It is a terrible approach to try to do a nice thing. We produced nuclear power that way and we are suffering the consequences.

“I love solar, but I hate paying 42 cents for something that’s not worth that. It is going to give solar a bad name. It is not the way of the future.”

Obviously, the government wants to create a renewable-energy industry to fill in the gap as it plans to shut down coal plants by 2014. But Rubin says instead of larding the green-energy program with unsustainable subsidies, the Liberals should simply challenge companies to produce solar power that can compete with the conventional supply.

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